Posted on 10/26/2007 8:36:47 AM PDT by Livin_large
WHEN it comes to the business of elections, Louisiana likes to confound conventional wisdom. While most of its Southern neighbours were busy electing Republicans during the early 2000s, Louisiana stubbornly returned a Democrat, Mary Landrieu, to the Senate in 2002, and put another one, Kathleen Blanco, in the governor's mansion in 2003. Now, as Republican fortunes have sagged across the nation—in no small part because of the Bush administration's failure to cope with Hurricane Katrina's devastation of Louisiana's coast in 2005—the party is having a banner year in the state.
Atop the scorecard is the Republicans' reclamation of the governorship, in a rare primary-election victory by the 36-year-old Bobby Jindal on October 20th. Unusually, Louisiana holds a combined primary for all candidates, Democrat and Republican, with the top two vote-winners going forward to a run-off. Even more unusual is for a candidate to win outright on the first round, which is what Mr Jindal managed, polling an impressive 54% of the primary vote. Perhaps most remarkable of all is that Mr Jindal, who is Indian-American as well as very young, has overturned what had been supposed to be deep-seated prejudice. Four years ago, his defeat by Ms Blanco was widely viewed as proof that the state's “Bubbas”—rednecks uncomfortable with politicians who don't look like them—had not evolved.
But just four years later, Bubba seems to have granted Mr Jindal, whose given name is Piyush, honorary redneck status. (Four years ago, bumper stickers appeared with the slogan “Bubbas for Bobby”, but the message has taken a long time to sink in.)
Mr Jindal is something of a paradox. He is the first non-white governor since Reconstruction; he is a Rhodes scholar; he is the nation's youngest governor. In other words, he's a breath of fresh air, a sign of progress who promises to eradicate corruption in what many say is America's worst-governed state. On the other hand, he is a religious conservative who was as reliable a rubber-stamp as George Bush had in Congress, refusing to make a fuss even when Republicans there were blaming New Orleans for Katrina. Not all of the air is fresh.
Mr Jindal's victory is only the icing on the cake. The Republicans are expected to take five of the six elected state offices in Louisiana when the run-off votes are counted next month.
And next year the Democrats' top officeholder, Ms Landrieu, looks like facing an uphill battle. When she was last elected, in 2002, she won in large part thanks to a landslide in her home city, heavily Democratic New Orleans. Whereas the city's predilections haven't changed dramatically, its size has, and its electoral significance along with it. In 2002 almost 133,000 New Orleanians voted in the Senate race. On October 20th less than 60% of that number turned up at the polls, a sign of the city's post-Katrina shrinkage. Ms Landrieu won New Orleans by almost 80,000 votes in 2002, twice her overall margin of victory. This time, that was more votes than all the candidates got combined in the city that was once the alpha and the omega of Louisiana politics.
An if you want to get in to the technicalities of race...if Mr Jindal,is an Indian-American from India... then he is indeed "Caucasian" as far as the US government is concerned... or so my Indian-American friends tell me
That’s right. He is Caucasian (some might say proto indo european). The people who claim otherwise really go by the most superficial of appearances.
Thank goodness for W, Rove and the magical magnificent weather generator.
‘Ms Landrieu won New Orleans by almost 80,000 votes in 2002, twice her overall margin of victory. This time, that was more votes than all the candidates got combined in the city that was once the alpha and the omega of Louisiana politics.’
When she loses, I wonder who Mary ‘Baby Fat’ Landrieu will want to “punch in the face”?
My guess, Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco.
Congress makes Bush look great.
I look forward to the day when keeping track of who is part of what racial group will just get so unweildy and complicated that people will just stop bothering.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I was a regular subscriber to the Economist - when it was published in the U.K. It was then a moderately conservative publication by European standards and more to the right, by U.S. standards, than the two major U.S. news weeklies - Time and Newsweek. That began to change and increasingly so, year after year, since they moved their headquarters to New York City and now employ more of their staff there than anywhere else. Increasingly, it has become less intelligent of a publication and more of its "news" reports are simply editorials masquerading as news.
When it attempts to juxtapose its proclamation that: "Republican fortunes have sagged across the nation—in no small part because of the Bush administration's failure to cope with Hurricane Katrina's devastation" with its report that the winner in the race for governor, Republican Jindal refused "to make a fuss even when Republicans there were blaming New Orleans for Katrina";
the Economist is simply ignoring basic facts and not even asking a more obvious editorial question, which would be:
"Maybe, in electing the Republican, Mr. Jindal, the people of Louisiana had a greater understanding of the problems surrounding Katrina than did the media, which ignored the vast extent to which local and state officials held the greater share of responsibility for those problems than did the federal government."
Whereas the city's predilections haven't changed dramatically, its size has, and its electoral significance along with it. In 2002 almost 133,000 New Orleanians voted in the Senate race. On October 20th less than 60% of that number turned up at the polls, a sign of the city's post-Katrina shrinkage.
Urban sh!t-holes are Democratic strongholds by their very nature. The Republican Party would do well to learn a lesson about that.
My thoughts exactly.
I hope the GOP can pick up this senate seat, could offset a loss in virginia.
That's because Bobby knew what happened. He must have taken some personal satisfaction to see Blanco founder. To give her due credit, even she knows that she was not up to the job. That's one reason why she didn't run again.
And Nicki Tsongas, widow of Saint Paul Tsongas, won by just 6% in MA this month. The Dems are tied to Pelosi and Reid, who will take them down to defeat nerxt year.
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